The Missing Child in Consumption Theory.

Children are essentially invisible in theories of consumer society and culture, despite their presence and centrality in everyday life. In this article, Cook argues that children and childhood, and thus mothers and motherhood, must be acknowledged and investigated as constitutive of--rather than derivative of or exceptional to--commercial, consumer culture generally. The focus here is not on how to better accommodate children and childhood (and mothers and motherhood) within extant notions of consumption and consumer culture, but to begin to open up the field of consumption studies to the essential and non-negotiable presence of children and childhood throughout social life.

(Author's Abstract)